White
papers are articles written to inform and educate a specific audience about
products or services with technical information and evidence for positioning
the product or service accordingly.

Yes,
we include some marketing, however this should be kept to a minimal to sustain
creditability. For example when I would write an article about drill bits I
would usually provide a background of what type of drill bits worked best in
specific applications and how the new design fulfilled a gap in this segment
with comparative test data tables.

So
lets start with an outline that fulfills these sections:

Audiences’
level of understanding and which audience we are addressing?

Answer
the question of why would they care about this and how can we support this
concern?

What
supporting evidence is available for this article?

How
can I make this interesting in a conversational style, making sure I use appropriate
jargon for the audience selected.

Now
let’s review what will make this white paper strong and non-advertising:

Strong
introduction to grab the appropriate audience.

How
can I layout the facts to make it interesting (tables, charts, diagrams)?

Can
I secure supporting evidence for my claims from the industry and quote other
research reports or surveys?

Summarize
in the last paragraph why this product or service addresses the problem stated
in the article with supporting evidence.

Make
sure to explain in details the fit and how it works.

Let’s
make sure we don’t sound like an ad, since all of us more than likely
have started to read such an article and then discarded it for this very reason.

PS:
Guerrilla Marketers love white papers because they can multiply like rabbits
on the Internet for very little cost and effort.